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Sicarius Model Walkthrough

Here is the tutorial without the nasty downloading hassle. Not much of an update but its a lot easier. Im working on his face at the moment and will post the pics when im comfortable with it and his right claw is touched up to a degree.

Before we begin: I received this Captain Sicarius model from a good friend from school. I have never painted Ultramarine before but I recently developed a way to paint blue armour. I will also cover how to paint non-metallic metals gold and silver, (or NMM.) If you don’t know what NMM is, all it is is taking straight colors that are not metallic and through a series of highlighting and blending will create something cleaner and crisper than a metallic. Because with all the NMM colours that are on the mini, a NMM will help to blend in with the rest of the model. Let’s begin.

High Tabletop quality tutorial

Step 1: Shave off all mould lines and clean with hot soapy water.

Step 2: Prime white.

Step 3: Paint all the metallic parts of the model and all the parts that will consist of blue armour VMC German Gray (167). Yes I know, I primed it white and now most of it is almost black. Think I’m crazy? Well maybe a little.

German Gray is very close to black. I use it to highlight black because GW does not have a dark enough colour.

Step 4: This step requires some patience. Which will consist of the blue armour. The blue armour is going to be built up in various layers of paint from gray to blue. You must use extremely thin paints. The use of extremely thin paints gives you the ability to create flawless blending. You MUST be careful about how much paint is on your brush. It will be very thin and hard to control. If you have too much on your brush at once, the paint will get out of control and seep into the crevices. So use very little paint and lots of layers. For the next few or so steps, I will only be showing his left arm so that you can get a better idea of what the paint job should look like. For the blue armour I used a ratio of 1 part VMC German Gray, to 1 part VMC Ultramarines blue (22). You don’t necessarily have to use extremely thin paints for this first part, but give it a nice even coat of this. Leave the crevices German Gray. BUT, the hard part about the blue armour is that I used a lighting effect on the armour. So towards the bottom, create shadows by leaving parts German Gray. You will see more about what I’m talking about in the next step.

Step 5: For this step, I used more ratios of paint to build up to pure Ultramarines Blue. Just use less German Gray and more Ultramarines Blue and build this up. I took multiple pictures to show you the lighting effect I used.

And there you have it for the blue armour. I didn’t highlight anything because of the lighting effect I used. I may highlight later but I probably won’t.

Step 6: Here is where we start painting the NMM silver. For his claws and chains and other misc. items, I mixed VMC Intermediate blue (903), and Vallejo Model GAME Colour Sombre gray. This doesn’t have a number. I don’t think. I don’t remember the exact ratio I used; I just know that I used two drops of Intermediate blue and a lot of Sombre gray. You should not get a gray. More or less a grayish blue to give the metal a newer, crisper, appearance.

Step 7: Now we will begin highlighting the NMM so that it actually LOOKS like metal. Be sure to use very thin paints so that it blends well and so the highlights won’t look too sharp and unnatural. So first, I used a thinned down Intermediate blue. I then worked my way up to VMGC Stonewall Gray. Again, no number is on this. I would not recommend putting much more than that for NMM silver. If you use white, like I did, use it very, very thin, and sparingly.

Here (above) is the picture of the claws with intermediate blue on top of the mix I created. The darker colour is towards the bottom of the claws. And here is the finished claws (bottom). This is created by making a final highlight of VMC Stonewall gray. I did not put any pure white on the claws, but I did put white on the chains on his shoulder pad.

Step 8: I am now going to try my first attempt at NMM gold. It may not be the best but I think it will come out fairly well. So start the NMM gold off with VMC Cadmium Maroon (35).

Then move onto the colour VMC US Field Drab (142). Leave just a little bit of Cadmium Maroon showing.

Now, use a mix of US Field Drab and VMC Green Ochre (119) leaving bits of the last colour showing around the rivets and other misc. places.

Now use pure Green Ochre to start highlighting it. Leave lots of the last colour showing beneath it.

Now add VMC Iraqui Sand (124) to the Green Ochre. Highlight again leaving the last colour showing. Then highlight, very lightly, with pure Iraqui Sand.

Step 9: Add all the little tidbits and details to your model and touch it up. You should be done with most of your model. I will however cover everything else that is on my model. So next I will deal with the cloth.

Step 10: This is not much of a step but below is the finished product of everything that I have covered. It was time consuming, annoying and needs some major touch-ups later but for now I just want to get through with it. By touch-ups I mean fixing the blue armour because I did not blend it as well as I did with his left arm. The blue armour is all I hope to have to touch up but it was annoying to get through and that is exactly the reason that I paint most models in pieces. If I don’t then I will get overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and end up doing a slop job. Like his right arm.

Step 11: Here I will start by painting all the red parts. Mostly it’s just the purity seal wax and the gems hanging from his shoulders. Start off by painting all the red areas with VMC Hull Red (146). Then apply VMC Burnt Cadmium Red (34). Use VMC Gory Red. Then finally highlight with VMC Red (33) and I also used VMC Carmine Red (30).

Step 12: Now we begin the cloth stage. Paint all the cloth areas with VMC Flat Brown (140). Next, use US Field Drab as another base colour but leave the DEEPEST recesses Flat Brown. Then use thin paints and several layers to build up to VMC Khaki (142). Leave the recesses Flat Brown and US Field Drab. After that, paint highlights with a mix of Khaki and VMC Bone White. This is better known as “Bleached Bone”. Build that up to pure Bone White and done. Add all the script with black or gray. I use the same procedure when I paint the skulls like below his chest or on his claws.

Here he is so far but step 12 is not quite done yet. I still have LOTS to do on him. If you want to know how to do the face, check out Silvertabby’s tutorial on Painting faces skin and eyes. I will be using his method. I did stuff to the base because I was not in a painting mood. But I touched him up a wee bit. Ill post more pics when hes done. But for the next couple of weeks im rather busy.

This will be updated and like I said there is still LOTS AND LOTS of work and all those darn touch ups to be done. I will be taking requests for tutorials so if you have one or have questions, comments, or constructional criticism, post it on the comments or PM me and ill keep you updated. Im Dr.Know, theres nothing I dont.

That's a very cool-looking blue shade for the armor and I like the transition (primarily) on the left arm - I was wondering about how many steps/gradations you used between the German Gray and Ultramarine Blue?

One thing to note, just for naming conventions - Ultramarine Blue, Stonewall Grey, Sombre Grey, Gory Red, and Bonewhite are generally known just as Vallejo Game Color paints (VGC) since they're equivalents of Citadel's tabletop gaming paints. You're labeling them in parts as Model Color paints, which they aren't... no slight to you, but I just wanted to make that distinction for anyone else reading the tutorial.

While I would agree that with your method of shade color working up to light color might not necessarily need highlighting, I was wondering if you would be going back in specific areas (like the hard light-facing edges) and adding more in the way of extreme highlights?

So far as the NMM goes, I like the selection of colors and it's not one I've normally seen used for either the silver or the gold metals, but I was wondering if you were going to be taking the highlights up to near white to give them the glinting metallic effect or if you were going to be sticking with flatter metal colors along the lines of the armor?

All things being equal and this still very much a work in progress, I'm liking the appearance of Sicarius so far and looking forwards to more!

A very nice guide, as Tinweasel said, its a very cool looking shade of blue, and the transition is really well done. As far as NMM has gone, i to, think it needs another highlight to give it that gleaming affect, while it is an interesting shade of gold, its missing the gleam. I can't wait to see how this turns out though, so far you've done a great job on the model, keep us updated.

You know you should go to sleep when the sheep your counting start to hit the fence.

@ Tinweasel: For the blue armour, I in fact only used 2 colors. Ultramarines Blue over UB+German Gray. The use of EXTREMELY thin paints comes into play there. Because they are so diluted that a couple passes over it will not be very noticeable. So I just used UB in many layers over the last base coat and built it up to pure UB with LOTS of coats of it. Left arms blue armour; an hour or 2. Very tedious. Thanks for the constructional criticism on the paints. Ill try a few highlights and post the pics. If i do bring the highlights on the metal to white; it wont be white, it will be VMC Ice Blue.